


Stone Bridges

by panchostokes (badwolfrun)



Series: Whumptober [2]
Category: MacGyver (TV 2016)
Genre: Angst, Angus MacGyver (MacGyver TV 2016) Whump, Gen, Human shield, Hurt Jack, Hurt Mac, Hurt/Comfort, Jack Dalton (MacGyver TV 2016) Whump, Jack Dalton Returns, Jack Dalton Whump, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Secret Injury, Whumptober, Whumptober 2019, stay with me
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-04
Updated: 2019-10-12
Packaged: 2020-11-23 03:16:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,886
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20885240
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/badwolfrun/pseuds/panchostokes
Summary: Is it too late to come on home / Are all those bridges now old stone?Jack returns, right in the nick of time. (Whumptober prompts: human shield, stay with me)





	1. Long and Lost

**Author's Note:**

> I'm having so much fun diving into the world of writing Macgyver fic, I hope the trend continues!

He didn’t know why he was so nervous. He was back on American soil, back in L.A, back to the job he loved more than any other job he ever had, and it was quite the list. 

He strolled through the halls of the Phoenix, marveling at the minor changes, the new faces, but the atmosphere was still the same, the hustle and bustle of a devoted organization just trying to save the world mission by mission.

He was back home, back in his second house. 

Very few people were currently aware of that fact. Outside of the lab techs and other Phoenix personnel who gave him a courteous smile, wave and nod in acknowledgement of his return, Matilda Webber was the only other person aware of Jack’s return for work.

His initial plan was to show up to Mac’s house with a six-pack, but when he arrived, he found the house that was still sorely lacking in proper security completely vacant--the absence of furniture in Bozer’s room gave him a minor startle, before he remembered there was discussion of him moving out before he left for his mission. 

It was then that he drove over to the phoenix, Matty was so invested in delegating tasks on her phone that she didn’t even see Jack enter the war room. He wishes he could have recorded the day that he was able to catch Matilda Webber by surprise.

“The rest of the team is on a mission, I can have you brought in, or we can put you on comms--”

“Nah, that’s alright,” Jack waved off. “Let them finish the mission, _ dis-Jack-tion _ free.”

“Glad to see your sharp wit hasn’t dulled,” Matty quipped with a mischievous smile on her face, but Jack didn’t match it. He sat, legs spread apart, back straightened, arms gripping the sides of the chair. He concentrated on his rapid heart rate, shakiness in his legs that made them feel like jello. He wasn’t typically one to fidget, Mac was always the one that would fidget, but he just barely tapped his foot against the floor. He hated himself for it, what was he so damn nervous about?

“Give it time, I’m still grating this block of cheese up here.” Jack pointed to his head. 

Jack sat, silent, observing as Matty communicated to the team on the comms--they didn’t have visual, but hearing the voices of Mac, Riley, Bozer, Leanna and Desi added a little bit of heat to the heart that had turned to ice. A necessary evil, he couldn’t show any sign of weakness to Kovacs, especially when they held Jack as a prisoner of his own war for the briefest of moments in his much-too-long mission.

He knew the walls that he built around him would degrade over time, knew that the minute he held Mac and Riley in his arms again, he’d melt like butter, but between the...formalities of his farewell to the Phoenix team (oh, how he regrets telling them at the last minute instead of bestowing a more deserving goodbye to them, especially when he almost didn’t return home more than once) and the way he heard how well the team got on without him, he couldn’t help but wonder if he would still have a place on the team.

If Mac would still need his protection. 

If Mac was mad at him for leaving.

In the rare occurrences of dreaming in his short stints of sleeping, he would envision Mac, covered in blood, sweat and tears, screaming at him because Jack left him, just like his real father did.

Just like he left Riley.

He allowed himself to ask the question to Matty, if he still had a job and if it was still his old one. Matty looked at him like he had five heads, “of course you still have the job, Dalton, as far as I’m concerned, you never left. Just took...an extended vacation.”

“Does that mean all my vacation days are used up? Was thinking about putting in for a week or two…”

“When?”

“How ‘bout tomorrow?” Jack lips dared to twitch up as Matty shot the familiar daggers into his eyes. His eyebrows wriggled instead, head tilted back. “Ah, there we go, now I’m _ really _back.” 

He continued to sit and listen, his knuckles whitened as he heard the words that were so often said during missions, “we got a problem.” Despite the fact that he turned down the offer to join the mission, he suddenly found the urge to join in after all, as he heard Mac’s panicked yells and flustered explanations through the comms. He even opened his mouth to say something, knowing fully well that it could derail the focus of the mission, cause a sputter into the wheels in Mac’s mind, but bit his tongue as Desi diffused the situation, and Mac’s tone calmed back down.

“We good?” Matty asked. 

“Yeah,” Mac affirmed with a cough. “Yeah, Matty, we’re good. Desi’s got it covered.”

Jack nodded, proud that Desi was doing the job he enlisted her for, and that she did it well. A dark part of him contemplated that she was doing it almost too well, again jumped on the train of thought of how Mac wouldn’t need his protection anymore. 

Another nightmare that haunted him, one of Mac telling Jack that his Wookie life debt was repaid, that he didn’t need to be his human shield anymore.

That he didn’t even want to work with him anymore. 

“So. How are we going to do this?” Matty addressed him after she finished her final communication with the team.

“Do what?” 

“Surprise the team, of course.”

“I dunno, figured they’d just come back and I’d be here, and we’d all be one big happy family again?”

“Oh please, Dalton, you may have been able to slip out like a shadow but you’re coming back with a bang. You can’t tell me you haven’t thought about it.”

“Well...now that you mention it…”

He hadn’t stopped planning the moment since he left. Hadn’t stopped running the scenarios of his return, different paths branching out like a tree. Kept fine tuning the dialogue, painting the faces that he had ingrained into his memory before he left. Sometimes it was the only comfort in the face of the brink of death, in those moments where he thought he wasn’t even coming back at all. At least he could dream about it, pretend that everything was okay.

He could pretend that he wasn’t too late.

The glass walls of the war room were fogged, the lights dimmed. The minute the jet landed, Matty texted Mac to come to the war room for a “top secret debrief.”

It wasn’t a complete lie, as Mac would be the first to be told _ everything _that happened on Jack’s mission, anyway. 

Minutes later, he sauntered into the room, Jack stood in the shadows behind the door, ears pricked up as the familiar smell of Mac tickles his nostrils.

“What’s...this about?” Mac asked hesitantly, noting the mostly empty room, save for Matty, who stood by the screen, waiting.

“First things first, please state your name for the record.”

“Angus Macgyver.” 

“What kind of name is ‘_Angus? _’”

Mac spun around on the spot, a soft gasp flew past his lips. Wide eyes of a startled deer, eyebrows curved up past his hair--cut short again, Jack noted. 

“Jack?” he asked, as Jack took the first step forward. Jack’s heart froze for a moment, as there was a sense of disbelief to Mac’s voice, that Jack wasn’t actually here, or that perhaps he couldn’t recognize Jack because of the beard he had grown in his time away.

“In the flesh.”

He motioned to wrap his arms around Mac, but Mac didn’t seem to reciprocate, instead looking at him with utmost bewilderment--_ oh god, he is mad at me. _

He extended his hand, mentally threatening himself if that if his fingers started to tremble, he’d cut the whole limb off. He just wanted to wrap the kid in a hug so tight his bones would pop. He could feel the walls lowering around him, both figuratively, and literally as the windows began to de-fog in the room.

But the time for anxiety was over, he wasn’t just in his second house anymore, he was finally, truthfully _ home_, as a wide smile spread from ear to ear on the young man’s face, which contagiously spread to Jack.

The first smile he’s had in six months, turned to a gleeful laugh as the two shook hands.

And then wilted just as soon as it had blossomed on his face, as he saw a red dot on Mac’s chest. 

In an instant, Mac--who had already been motioning to pull Jack into an embrace--was jerked towards Jack as he both pulled the man closer to him, and pushed them both to the ground.

But not before the glass shattered behind him, before something flew through his back and burst out of his chest.

“Dalton!” Matty’s voice screamed out, before firing rapid orders into a walkie-talkie out of her mouth and firing bullets out of her hands through the broken window.

Jack groaned and was pushed over. He was shocked that his body was so still, because the room was tilted, spinning, he was certain that his body would have slid down against the confines of the war room.

“Jack!” Mac’s voice bellowed around him. Distorted. Muffled. Talking through water. A blonde blur right in front of him, no apparent wounds, Jack let out a short sigh of relief, before the sigh led to a struggle for air. 

“Take it easy, Jack, just...just…” Mac stammered. 

“Guess...I was right on time, huh, Mac?” Jack blurted out. His eyes wandered downward, straining the boundaries of his dizziness. “Got any duct tape? Maybe yo-you’ll be able to stitch me with some paper clips…”

His eyes rolled upwards, he meant to stop at Mac’s face, but they kept rolling up, and he was left in darkness.

“No! Jack! Stay with me!”


	2. Fake It

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> We can never go back / We can only do our best to recreate
> 
> Mac just wants everything to be okay, for Jack to be okay--as reflects on the choices that led them to this page in their story. (whumptober prompt: secret injury)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Three things:  
1) I changed the rating cause I realize it's getting a bit more...descriptive than initially intended  
2) I updated the tags accordingly, sorry to keep y'all in the dark but I wanted this to be a surprise ;)  
3) I hope y'all don't mind...but I decided to add another chapter to the count, instead of just dumping it all in one go. 
> 
> Enjoy. :)

“Jack, oh, God...Don’t go, stay-stay with me, c’mon, buddy…”

He had never wanted Jack to open his big mouth and talk more in his life. Wanted the still, pale face to burst into animation, excitedly chitter away about Bruce Willis or Die Hard or bust out in a poorly performed rendition of a Salt-N-Pepa song. 

He would even take the verbalization of what he initially thought Jack had returned for: to remind him of why he left. Remind him of how worthless Mac was. That he couldn’t save anyone--couldn’t save Charlie, probably not even himself in that situation. That he left before Mac got him killed for good, was just showing up to show and tell him how great he was doing without him. It was his fault anyway, for not returning Jack’s calls, because Mac was sure that’s what he was going to tell him. Not that he missed him, not that he wished Mac was there, with him, that he  _ needed  _ him, just as much as Mac needed Jack, too.

The rift that had deepened between them over the past year, and Mac couldn’t help but feel that he was the one who allowed the bridge to collapse beneath them. He left not just the Phoenix, but left  _ Jack _ without so much of a goodbye, didn’t even give him the chance to follow him--because at one point, he would have followed him right down to the Earth’s core itself--and didn’t return his calls then, either, instead selfishly watching the videos Jack sent on repeat. He had tried to work up the courage to call him back, say all the things he didn’t when he walked out that day, admit that perhaps he made a mistake, not for leaving--he sure as hell didn’t regret that, but for leaving without offering the rest of the family to come with.

And then when he did come back, they didn’t seem to spend as much time together as they used to. Attempts were made, sure, to recreate the good old days, even with a failed “manniversary” to Las Vegas, but more and more missions were spent apart, and their friendly bickering somehow turned more volatile before Jack was whisked away from the Phoenix. 

No wonder he left so easily.

He regretted the way things were left between them. Regretted that apologies weren’t said, that more efforts weren’t made to stay in contact. 

Regretted that years of friendship through fire parted on a curt handshake.

Then again, he was never good with good-byes. Was never given a proper one by his own father, never seemed to give satisfactory ones of his own.

_ “You just keep thinking, Butch. That’s what you’re good at.” _

He was good at thinking, ruminating, played out the scenario of Jack’s return over and over and over in his mind, tried to will it into existence more times than he could count.

But what good would  _ thinking  _ do right now? He couldn’t even think properly without the man’s ranting and raving encouraging the hamster to spin the wheel in his head. He didn’t want anyone else to fill that role, not really. 

And in this moment, all he really wanted was Jack to show some sign that he was alive.

“Stay down, Macgyver, the threat hasn’t been neutralized,” Desi ordered, Mac wasted no time in throwing himself on top of Jack, hoping to increase the pressure on the wound, preventing the loss of at least  _ some  _ blood in his quickly draining body. 

“We need to get him to medical!” Mac shouted. “Now!” 

“Help is on the way, Mac,” Matty’s voice fluttered in, a rare hint of worry in her normally collected tone. “Just keep him breathing.”

He was breathing, but barely just. Mac had to even check his own pulse to make sure  _ he  _ was breathing, too. Firing on all cylinders, he looked up, wildly searching for something to use--hell, even a paperclip, as Jack had suggested, to stitch his friend up together. He groaned, a rare instance in which the desires of his heart overpowered the logic in his head, but he had to try and think their way out of this. 

But try as he might, no words floated in the air above him, identifying tools that he could use. Just a blurry room, the only focus he had was on Jack’s unconscious body, his lips parted just slightly open, his blood oozing between Mac’s fingers splayed out on his bleeding chest.

Desi had jumped out the window, he heard the distant sound of gunfire as Riley and Bozer burst into the room, a med team hot on their trail with a stretcher. 

Mac followed, but he was almost reluctant to do so. Like he didn’t deserve it. It was his fault that Jack got shot, the bullet was obviously meant for him, because Jack was in that room, for god knows how long, waiting for  _ him  _ to arrive, and that’s when the shot was taken, right through his most reliable, strongest shield. 

“Looks like it’s a through and through,” the medic observed. 

“But where did the bullet go? Didn’t see any on the floor, did you, Boze?”

“Nah, but I didn’t get a good look….”

Bozer looked back, saw Mac lagging behind. Mac waved his hand for them to go ahead, he was catching up, albeit slowly.

He pushed himself through the water that filled the halls of the false think tank, shoved down a sharp pain in his chest as he could already hear the flat line hum through his ears. Jack was dead, and it was all his fault. His blood was on his hands, literally and figuratively. 

It was on the jacket he was wearing, too.  _ Jack’s  _ black leather jacket, that he had borrowed during one of the nights he slept at his apartment, wrapping himself in Jack’s scent to get rid of the foul odors of smoke and dust that he couldn’t seem to shake out his nostrils.

And his shirt. A white shirt, now dyed forever with a crimson puddle.

And somewhere between the War Room and Medical, he realized that Jack’s blood was even on the skin under his shirt.

No, it wasn’t Jack’s blood. 

It was  _ his  _ blood. 

He slowly peeled away the top button of his shirt, he could just barely see the copper of the bullet lodged in his chest, could taste the iron in his mouth, the blood swirling underneath his tongue.

He kept it to himself, as he closed the jacket in on himself tightly, crossed his arms under his profusely sweating armpits. Jack needed all hands on deck, couldn’t even risk having one person take their attention away from him to tend to Mac. 

His eyes looked around the room, he didn’t let his mind deceive him this time, strained focus at his options of tools to use to take the bullet out, stitch himself together. 

But all of the objects were labeled not with their actual identity, but a name. 

Jack’s name.

_ Jack Jack Jack Jack Jack _

He shut his eyes, when he opened them, he pushed through a wave of tears that were prickling at his eyelids. He allowed himself a sharp, shallow inhale of oxygen into his body as he reached for a pair of clamps.

He fumbled, found himself on top of the counter, knocked over a tin of cotton balls and a roll of bandages. 

“Mac?” Riley’s voice echoed against the stainless steel of the counter-top.

He saw her distorted reflection as he pushed himself up. 

“I’m fine!” he sputtered quickly. “Help Jack.”

“Mac, you don’t look so good. Hey, we need help over here!”

His heart sank at the worry in her voice. He couldn’t imagine how frantic she must be feeling, both her father and brother bleeding out together. 

_ Together. _

They were suffering, but at least they were suffering together.

Mac’s body slid off the counter-top and onto the floor. The last thing he saw was one of Jack’s hands, that he swore was reaching out towards him, hanging limp off the side of the operating table.


	3. Infinity

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After all the time \ After you \ Had you seen me with someone new \Hanging so high for your return \ But the stillness is a burn.
> 
> A conversation between two old friends, stitching together a broken bond that was never really broken in the first place, not really. (whumptober prompts: stitches, embrace)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I did it! I fixed them! I think...
> 
> The prompts for this one are very loosely connected, not even that apparent, really, but there nonetheless.

A giant invisible thumbtack pinned his body to the soft surface beneath the blossoming ache in his spine. They put him on some pretty strong painkillers, given that he could barely even feel his waking arms and legs wriggle under the tight blanket tucked around his body.

His sight was the first sense to fully return, which almost retreated back into the dreamless void, frightened by the overexposed brightness in the ceiling above him.

He turned his head, and his smell returned as his nose filled with the scent of the blonde haired boy that occupied the gaps in between the throbbing of his heart. 

“Mac…” he muttered through cracked lips, hoarsely cutting through the dusty atmosphere of his mouth, the harsh taste of disinfectant and bitter metal coating his tongue that dared to slide through his lips. 

His adjusting eyes darted around the cold, white room around him, he searched for his partner as he touched the blankets at his side, digging his fingers in, wrapped up a fistful of the cloth, nearly ripping the netted pattern apart. 

He found the kid lying in the bed just a few feet away, head turned towards Jack, eyes closed in a gentle sleep. Initially, Jack thought he was just taking a nap during his watch over his partner, a familiar practice amongst the team which had made use of his gifted Dallas Cowboys decorated Snuggie, with the exception of Jack, who usually never slept while his friends were recovering.

But Mac wasn’t wearing the Snuggie, he was wearing a hospital gown.

“Mac!” Jack rasped. He tried to sit up, but the thumbtack was still pinning him down, his efforts earned him nothing but a sharp pain. He reached a hand out in a futile effort to try and shake his friend awake, but he was just out of arm’s reach. “Mac…”

Mac’s eyes fluttered open, a soft groan buzzed through his lips. 

“Mac, what happened?” Jack asked sharply, he tried again to sit up but couldn’t. He put his hand over his chest, blocked his heart from leaping out of his body. 

“Mmm...well ‘good morning’ to you too, Jack.”

He was drugged up on painkillers, too, striking out the possibility that he had simply changed from blood stained clothes to a hospital gown.

“Why are you in a hospital bed?” 

“Got shot,” Mac sighed, flapping his arms up in the air and down to the bed in gesture of his body.

“No,  _ I  _ got shot, so that you wouldn’t.”

“Went right through you and into me. Don’t worry, just a couple stitches,” Mac quickly added, stretching the gown to reveal a large bandage on his chest. It was annoying Jack, the normalcy in Mac’s voice, his posture, as if this was a regular occurrence.

Jack stiffened, some small, gruff voice screamed at him in the back of his head, cursing at him. Why did he even bother coming back, if he still couldn’t protect Mac, anyway? 

“Guess your shield isn’t as thick as it once was…” Jack muttered, more towards himself than intended for Mac’s ears.

“You are looking a bit...thinner. Not in a good way.”

“Long story.”

“Looks like we got nothing but time, right now.”

Jack turned away, looked towards the ceiling. Silence hung in the air between them for an inordinate amount of time to pass as a “comfortable” silence.

“So...did you get him?” Mac asked, lulling Jack out of his uncharacteristically silent stupor. “Kovacs?”

“Yeah. Wasn’t easy.” 

_ Wish you were there. _

“So...does that mean you’re back?” Mac’s voice called to him amidst a whirlwind echo of shouts and screams that haunted Jack’s ears at the six letter name that brought a heavier weight than expected, for a dead man.

The truth was, he hadn’t quite decided. Didn’t know if he  _ should  _ come back. 

“Yeah. I think.” 

He didn’t mean to say it out loud. Damn drugs. That minuscule amount of doubt, the word that indicates to both of them that there was even the smallest possibility that sure, Jack was here, back in the Phoenix but it wasn’t a full return.

“You ‘think?’ What do you mean, you ‘think?’”

Jack licked his suddenly dry lips, wished he could just fall back asleep instead of answering the very valid question, that he didn’t even know the answer to himself. Just hours ago he was certain that he was home, but that home was broken into, and Jack failed at his job to protect it.

“Jack...you always have a place here, man, you know that,” Mac continued. “And we...we need you.”

“Do you, though? You’ve got Desi, seems like she’s been doing a great job at protecting y’all.”

“Yeah, Desi’s great. Took some time for us to warm up to each other, and you’re right, she does a great job, but she’s not  _ you. _ ”

Jack averted his eyes, found sudden interest in the tiles on the floor.

“And I-I’ve missed you, you know. Missed having you around, watching Die Hard, missed your voice--”

“Then why didn’t you return my calls?”

_ Stupid, Dalton, stupid! Why you always gotta put your foot in your mouth before the cards are on the table? _

But instead of keeping his mouth shut before saying anything else he might regret, he kept talking. 

“You-you’re sitting here talking like I’m just a friend you haven’t seen in years, reminiscing over the ‘good ol’ days’ but I gave you  _ so many  _ opportunities, man. So- _ many- _ to keep our connection strong, and you...you left me hanging, bro.”

“I offered to come with,” Mac huffed. “ _ You  _ didn’t want me to come.”

“It’s-it’s not that I didn’t want you--”

“No, that’s what it was. You didn’t want me to come, because either you wanted all the glory for yourself in taking down that dumbass terrorist, or you didn’t want to risk  _ me  _ getting hurt. But you can’t always stop that, Jack. People get hurt in our line of work, all the time. It’s part of the job description, it’s why we’re sitting here in  _ medical _ . You didn’t want to take me because you were scared I’d get hurt and slow you down.”

“That’s not--”

“You’d been going off solo a lot more, anyway. Riding with the  _ Coltons _ ,” the disgust in Mac’s voice at the name confused Jack, but that was a question for another day. “Escorting Matty’s ex. On and off side missions where we didn’t even see each other for a week! You going off to get Kovacs was just an excuse to get rid of me for good.”

“I didn’t want to ‘get rid of you,’ Jesus, Mac! Where is this coming from?”

“Ev-Everyone’s been leaving, Jack. Ri...Riley had just about left to go be with that  _ dickwad, _ Bozer’s out of the house. Sam’s still gone, Desi’s like a revolving door, Dad’s got...a-and then he...he dug that hole for himself, really...”

Jack’s knuckles whitened,  _ what did that son of a bitch do now? _

“And  _ you _ \--after all this time, after all these years, telling me--” he screwed up his face, put on a poorly imitated accent, “‘Nah, dawg, I’ll never leave you, you n’ me, we’re like PB&J!’ You. Left.  _ Me.” _

A shuddering gasp escaped the kid’s lips. Jack noticed for the first time that his eyes had gotten redder, found focus on his face.

“It’s been lonely sitting at the firepit without you. I even pull an extra beer out, just in case...Kinda stupid, really, and...weird. Weird how a warm fire can feel so cold, without you there.”

“So that’s why you went over to my apartment and borrowed my jacket?” Jack asked, a playful jab, to try and break the tension, lighten things up a bit, because seeing this vulnerable, emotional side to Mac felt...wrong. He felt guilty, he had shone the spotlight on him, and he was seeing Mac for who he truly was, seeing the damage he unknowingly laid on him by leaving and not taking him with. 

It did the job, got a smile out of Mac though he tried to hide it. Jack’s lips twisted to a smirk, he was with his best friend again.

Another silence fell between them, but it felt warmer. More comfortable.

And once again, just like his cell phones, Mac broke it.

“For what it’s worth, I did call you. Once. And you didn’t answer.”

“When?” Jack croaked.

“About...six months ago? Sometime after...after Charlie…”

Mac’s voice trailed off, his turn to stare at nothing in particular. Jack’s heart sank, Desi had told him of the events that led to Charlie’s demise. He couldn’t help but think, if he had been there, how Charlie would be alive. 

Because he would have taken his place. 

“Oh.”

“Why didn’t you call back?” 

“Was uh, a bit tied up,” Jack said distantly. 

“That’s...not a euphemism, is it?” 

“No,” Jack replied flatly. “No, it’s not.”

“What did they do to you, Jack?”

“Can we...not talk about that...right now?”

“Okay.”

Jack shut his eyes, bit his lower lip to hide the tremble at the memories. 

“But we will. Some day,” Jack told him, an offering, to keep the fragile stack of cards from collapsing. “Talk about it.”

“I’ll hold you to that,  _ hoss,”  _ Mac replied with a more loving imitation of his friend’s accent. “Talking’s what you’re good at.”

Jack smiled, licked his lips again. He fixated on Mac’s face, memorizing the features, just in case this was some elongated hallucination and he had never left the confines of his captivity at the hands of Kovacs, which he would indeed tell Mac about someday. 

“Speakin’ of talkin’...What happened with the Coltons, man, I thought they were cool? Dish, boy!” Jack almost felt giddy, eager for the gossip, but his elation fell as soon as Mac’s face hit the ground.

Maybe now wasn’t a good time to talk about that. They had a lot to talk about, after all, and they would cross that bridge when they got there.

Mac cleared his throat, nodded his head towards the glass wall and the crowd behind it.

“Looks like we got company.” 

Jack directed his attention to the team, arms full with presents and balloons and pizza boxes--Jack could even swear that Riley was holding a DVD box set of Die Hard under her arm like a football. 

“Here we go,” Jack sighed, half-looking forward to the impending party, half-wishing that he could stay in this moment with Mac forever. 

He held out his fist to his comrade.

“Here we go,” Mac affirmed, but he didn’t bump Jack’s fist, instead wrapped his fingers around it, dug his fingers between Jack’s skin, prying apart the wall that was keeping the soft flesh of Jack’s palm from him. Their palms met, embraced, fingers melting together, holding onto the lives that they thought were gone for good.

A bridge formed between their intertwined hands. A reinforced bond made of stone, unbroken and unbending, no matter how much time they spent apart. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Also, thank you on joining me in this journey to completing my first, and definitely not last multi-chapter Macgyver fic. Y'all are so great. <3


End file.
